Omotai's Terrestrial Grief Shows Daring Steps Towards Masterpiece.

Nonetheless, Ayers helps edge the album into a more daring and experimental place that boldly goes where otherwise the band seems hesitant. Once the throbbing of his strange, Phillip Glass-ian showcase piece fades we're suddenly thrown into the title track.

It's an ambient, interstellar masterpiece that is something that the Legendary Pink Dots' Edward Ka-Spel would have been proud of crafting. Taken as part of the album as a whole, it's merely breathing space, but if you do as I do and pretend everything starts with "Seabitch," it's the slow drowning after a horrible shipwreck, a dark, beautiful, haunted piece of brilliance.

Lonchambon conceived the piece after reading a book of old sci-fi stories, Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics. It was originally supposed to be an ending to the opening track, "Vela Hotel," and perhaps that might have helped pull the record together more as a cohesive concept. I prefer it here, telling a tale of space pirates that launches farther away from Earth in the almost progressive follow-up track "Orison."

Most of Side A of Terrestrial Grief consists of solid pieces the band has been playing for a while, while Side B showcases more recent and dynamic work. Taking that as the direction that Omotai is headed, you can count on them becoming Houston's best metal act.

They have the balls to step away from the norm and find avenues of exploration others might be more hesitant to try. Consider Terrestrial Grief the next step towards their masterpiece.

Omotai plays Friday, December 28 at Walters with Odessa and From Beyond.